page_title: Bob Heffron
section_title: Minister for Education
hierarchical_section_title: Bob Heffron / Minister of the Crown / Minister for Education
caption_attribution_description: English: The first meeting of the governing Council of the New South Wales University of Technology (later known as the University of New South Wales), 6 July 1949&#91;1&#93; Around the table clockwise from the front left seat: HG Conde, GB Thomas, RC Harrison, Hon. JJ Maloney MLC, RJ Webster, WE Clegg, JP Glasheen, JS Fraser, Prof HJ Brown, JC Webb, A Denning, Hon RJ Heffron MLC, WC Wurth, Hon JSJ Clancy, JG McKenzie, Dr RW Harman, WG Kett, F Wilson, Prof SH Roberts, WR Laurie, JK MacDougall, PD Riddell, FM Mathews&#91;2&#93;
context_page_description: Robert James Heffron, also known as Bob Heffron or R. J. Heffron, was a long-serving New South Wales politician, union organiser and Labor Party Premier of New South Wales from 1959 to 1964. Born in New Zealand, Heffron became involved in various Socialist and labour movements in New Zealand and later Australia before joining the Australian Labor Party. Being a prominent unionist organiser, having been gaoled at one stage for "conspiracy to strike action", he was eventually elected to the Parliament of New South Wales for Botany in 1930. However his disputes with party leader Jack Lang led to his expulsion from the ALP in 1936 and Heffron formed his own party from disgruntled Labor MPs known as the Industrial Labor Party. The success of his party enabled his readmission to the party and his prominence in a post-Lang NSW Branch which won office in 1941.
  Heffron served as Minister of the Crown in the cabinets of William McKell, James McGirr and Joseph Cahill, most notably as Minister for Education from 1944 to 1960 and as Deputy Premier.
context_section_description: Appointed by McKell as Minister for Education in June 1944, Heffron authored in 1946 a comprehensive policy for the New South Wales education system entitled: Tomorrow is Theirs: The Present and Future of Education in New South Wales. As minister during the important post-war era of economic growth and infrastructure development, Heffron presided over the expansion in the number and facilities of the public schools in NSW, with enrollments in all areas doubling in size.
  In November 1952 he appointed Harold Wyndham as the Director-General of Education, and commissioned him to chair a committee tasked to completely review the Secondary education system in New South Wales and make recommendations for improvements. The committee's report, popularly referred to as "The Wyndham Report", was presented to Heffron in October 1957 and gave rise to the Public Education Act of 1961, being brought into effect in 1962, during Heffron's term as Premier. Key amongst the changes was the objective of presenting all students with the opportunity to experience a wide range of subjects, including visual arts, industrial arts, music and drama, and a wide range of languages. The five-year secondary school system was abandoned in favour of adding another year to the course, with major statewide external examinations at the end of the tenth (School Certificate) and the twelfth (Higher School Certificate) years of schooling.
  Heffron's reformist attitude in education also extended to the tertiary level, in which he intended to significantly expand NSW's capacity for higher-level learning. On 9 July 1946 he presented a proposal to the cabinet outlining the creation of a technological-based university in NSW, as a separate institution to the existing Sydney Technical College and a year later cabinet authorised the appointment of a Developmental Council, chaired by Heffron, to bring the new tertiary institution into existence. First meeting in August 1947, the council established all the guidelines and regulations that would set-up the future institution and by March 1948, 46 students had already enrolled to study.
  This institution, now named the "New South Wales University of Technology", gained its statutory status through the enactment of 'New South Wales University of Technology Act 1949', which was carried by Heffron's firm support of its cause: "the Government ... is fully alive to the need in a democratic country to extend facilities to students who, for financial reasons, cannot attend present full-time university courses". This was the first time that a second university was to be established in any Australian state. With the establishment of this institution receiving opposition by some areas in the media and conservatives, Heffron came to its defence in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 4 May 1949, noting: "I feel that this new institution should be given time to prove its worth through the quality and work of its graduates". In September 1958 Heffron moved the bill to change the name of the New South Wales University of Technology to the University of New South Wales following the recommendations of the Murray Report that had proposed the expansion of its focus from technology into such fields as medicine and arts. When several opposition MPs objected during debate on the basis of it posing a threat to the status of the University of Sydney, with one joking that it could be called "Heffron University", Heffron came to the defence of the university and dismissed the objections as "absurd". In 1950 Heffron's seat of Botany was abolished and largely replaced by Maroubra, which he was subsequently elected to and would hold until his retirement in 1968.
  Meanwhile, Heffron, who supported a general policy of decentralising tertiary education across the state, directed his Department to begin the establishment of various Teachers' Colleges in New South Wales, to provide sufficient tertiary training to the expanding numbers of teachers filling the new schools and colleges across the state. Among them was the Newcastle Teachers' 
caption: Heffron (centre, beneath mantlepiece) at the New South Wales University of Technology council's first meeting in July 1949
exif: {}